DREAMY SUMMER NIGHT VIEWS

The first spring rain, always forgetting how wonderful it smells and feels. How it is soft and silent, a happy one. How it feels to fall asleep with the melody of it. First spring rain, a mood of a kind. A mood for being comforted. 


The sound made me dreaming of the views that I saw from my homes some years ago, in Iceland. The bright summer night light. The open sky. Humming streets. Birch leaves in wind. Landings and taking offs of the domestic aircraft. An old woman with a scarf around her head, collecting all the bottles. Neighbor kid in a tiger mood.


What do you see from your window?


Weekend of biking in spring rain, balcony naps, reading, baking. Eating with friends. Listening to Faroese language. Summer plans with strawberry tastes and lime. Planting herbs.


Never setting sun, it feels almost like it already.


Have a good beginning for the new week!

WHERE THE WIND DOES NOT REACH

Homes of forests. Caves, hollows, tree trunks. A leaf, a flower. Places where the wind does not reach with its cold fingers. Some crochet their home and working place between branches, grass, rocks. Inside and apple, a mushroom. Under a stone, under moss. A heap of fir needles. In a puddle.

How did we learn to build homes with corners, angles.

A beautiful weekend of music and kind people. Sunday to read and walk. To search corners of this home for flour and salt and olive oil and this and that (meaning that only in the end I know what it became) and bake for the neighbors who come for a visit.

Warm thoughts to your Sunday.

(Small custom paintings from last summer.)

BEAMS OF A SKY LION

Mr. Sun was shining on Friday in his well rested clothes of gold and glimmer. In the old neighborhood all were still asleep. Tiny steps on snow. Crows nodding their heads for a passerby. Secret meetings of theirs, secret language of theirs from another corner to another one. A pheasant and his tail. Only narrow paths to walk. Carefully not to wake up the neighborhood yet.

Today he is shining again. A sun day for another walk.

Warm thoughts, welcome February!

SPARKLING FROSTY MORNINGS

A childhood scenery. A house that I passed every morning on the way to school. It was a long way and all the children in the neighborhood got a taxi ride. There was a lot of time to wait in the crossroad before the taxi gathered us all. No lampposts, winter mornings were cold and dark alone. Always waiting when the two roaring lights would appear from behind the forest curves.

The house I passed every morning and afternoon is my old neighbor house and there were two boys, twins, who I babysat for 10 years. Last December I painted as a commission their house and the boys as children in their beloved wellingtons. Fetching logs to keep the house warm on a frosty morning. Wellingtons which they loved on cold winter or hot summer days. Inside their grandmother would butter a bread and cut it in cubes with a knife and give it to their beautiful first dog, Kipi, piece by piece, staring and giving each others time enough.

Have a good late morning, and a good new week!

SOUNDSCAPE OF YESTERDAY

Rattle of fallen leaves in the wind. Bicycle tire banging into footpath, dark grey asphalt with sand here and there. Traffic lights peeping. Warm hug of a friend and a smile welcoming. Coffee house door opening, closing and opening again with a little sound of a humble bell. Hot drinks outdoors, café owner comes to wrap us to blankets like her own children. Spoons circling around inside the cups. Passer-bys with strong taps or lighter thumps. A boy like dancing with his school bag, a light soul, no homework.

Back to home in wind, meetings of other bicycles, red, black, grey ones on the way. Breaks of the bus number 15 make familiar rhythm in crossroads. Like the game that I played when I was smaller, always going home, eyes closed in a car, guessing in which curve we are.

Home, paper rattles, pencil lines. Water boiling. Knife cutting apples. Evening walk, sun is silent, vegetation is silent, turning yellow red purple pink. Only a few lost bees clattering inside bushes and crows cawing on lamp posts showing their area. Bowing deep, like doormen with fine top hats.

Bows and curtseys, happy morning!

A CROW SITTING ON THEIR SHOULDERS

Surprised by someone from childhood. An old neighbor of a neighbor of a neighbor of a neighbor said hello on Friday. I did not recognize him, but he recognized me. To think about it, I probably look exactly the same as 15-20 years ago. They were three boys and one girl, a crippled crow was their pet, we raced bikes on the sandy roads and ate tens of cinnamon buns as our parents were talking about things in our small village. Days were always sunny.

Reading by the lake of Pyhäjärvi, yesterday being surprised by another friend by accident. Unplanned tea in the arboretum, bicycling under clouds, eating in a house where leaves covered one of the high walls outdoors.

An allotment house for rainy seasons. An end of summer bracelet of clovers and other grass plants tied under a birch tree on another Sunday.

More clothes to be wrapped inside for todays tea under the windy birch tree, accompanied with knitting needles and sketch book.

Have a warm Sunday dear all of you!

LUMI

There was an article about an old gentleman in the newspapers who has kept weather diary for many decades. He has big notebooks where he marks twice a day what his home thermometer says and what is the official weather. In one notebook fits many years and if he travels, he marks the local weather. In those decades he has keeping doing it, he doesn´t see any clues about climate change. The weather changes and winds turn, going around and coming back. Though around 70´s one January sinivuokkos were blooming here. No signs of sinivuokkos yesterday in my neighbors´, the allotment garden.

A hint of lovely winter music by Oliver. Let it make good to you.